Topics in Free Will

Philosophers concerned with the problem of freedom and determinism differ strikingly over the analysis of the concept of human freedom of the will. Compatibilists and incompatibilists, determinists and indeterminists populate the conceptual landscape with a dizzying array of theories differing in complex and subtle ways. Each of these analyses faces an under-appreciated potential challenge: the challenge from scientific essentialism. Might all traditional analyses of freedom of the will be radically ill-conceived because the concept—the nature of freedom itself—is something discoverable only (...) by empirical science? I explore this vexing question. (shrink)

Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision presents an account of practical reasoning as a process that can explain action, connect reasoning with intention, ...

This article analyses neuronal determinism and mentions that at first sight it appears to be a type of qualified determinism. Neurodeterminism is better conceived as determinism tout court when it is applied to human beings. It differs importantly from genetic determinism, together the two views that are often regarded as similar in form if not in content. Moreover, the article examines the question of genetic determinism, because it is a paradigm of qualified determinism. It then explains the meaning of determinism (...) tout court, its relation with the notions of “free will” and “responsibility,” and the debate about their alleged incompatibility. It provides an understanding of what neurodeterminism consists of, shows that it should be conceived as determinism tout court when it is applied to human beings, imparting an empirical turn to a very old metaphysical conundrum. (shrink)

The conditional,if an agent did something, then the agent could have done otherwise, is analyzed usingstit theory, which is a logic of seeing to it that based on agents making choices in the context of branching time. The truth of the conditional is found to be a subtle matter that depends on how it is interpreted (e.g., on what otherwise refers to, and on the difference between could and might) and also on whether or not there are busy choosers that (...) can make infinitely many choices in a finite span of time. (shrink)

The nature of the real self -- Whole person and duality -- How nature is dual -- Real self and false self -- A primary certainty -- Certainty in the self -- The original cogito argument -- Overcoming representation -- The theory of right and wrong -- The defining principle -- Narrowing the definition -- The centrality of reason -- A question of proof -- Reason and intelligence -- A universal activity -- Human and animal consciousness -- Anti-spiritual assumptions -- (...) Intellect and religious ideals -- Creativity and spirituality -- The anomaly of creativity -- An archetypal view of creation -- Creativity resistant to systems -- Conforming to the divine pattern -- Happiness and the extension of time -- Happiness distinct from pleasure -- Implications for ascetic values -- Collective suffering -- Transcendence and normal experience -- The inner duality of consciousness -- The core of consciousness -- Theology and reductionism -- A radical conclusion -- The abstract and the concrete -- Common sense concreteness -- Mediation by living organisms -- Spirituality and power -- The freedom of the will -- Confusions about free will -- Free will and release from fate -- Arguments for free will -- Freedom and knowledge of truth -- The law of action and reaction -- Sources in scripture -- The causal principle and continuity -- What controls the world? -- Causality includes free will -- Choice of the lesser evil -- Apparent breaches of the law -- The insentience of the active faculties -- Cosmic reaction and judgement -- Consequences for modern religion -- Providence and fate -- Forms of cosmic order -- Providence and archetypal order -- Fate, providence, and salvation -- Fate and astrology. (shrink)

This paper examines commonly offered arguments to show that human behavior is not deterministic because it is not predictable. These arguments turn out to rest on the assumption that deterministic systems must be governed by deterministic laws, and that these give rise to predictability "in principle" of determined events. A positive account of determinism is advanced and it is shown that neither of these assumptions is true. The relation between determinism, laws, and prediction in practice is discussed as a question (...) in scientific epistemology. (shrink)

A study of the medieval foreknowledge problem: an apparent conflict between God's universal infallibility and human freedom. To say that God is universally infallible is to say that for every proposition, God's believing that proposition implies that it is true. Let's say that the belief implies its object. So God's belief yesterday that Jones will murder her neighbor today implies that she will murder him. Furthermore, the past is fixed, rendering propositions about the past true or false is impossible, so (...) it is too late today for Jones to do anything about God's yesterday-belief. So Jones, it seems, can do nothing about the murder. ;The flaw in the argument is that universal infallibility contradicts the fixity of the past. To see this, begin by asking: How is it that God's belief implies its object? I reject two initially promising attempts to account for this implication, and I endorse a third. This third account involves the claim that the essence of God requires that God have a belief only if it is true. Thus God's belief implies its object, and the object could be about the world outside God's mind. But saying that God's infallibility results from God's essence gives rise to the question of what prevents essential change in a thing. I argue that in God's case the only answer is God. This results in the claim that God renders the objects of God's beliefs true. Since some of God's beliefs are about the past, the past cannot be fixed. Of course, there are independent arguments for the fixity of the past, so I also refute the three such arguments that I take to be central. ;Given the above, the foreknowledge problem fails. One who accepts God's universal infallibility has already had to reject the fixity of the past. So there is no reason to worry that it is too late for an agent do anything about God's past beliefs or the present actions they imply. (shrink)

Though clearly fallacious, the inference from determinism to fatalism (the ``Lazy Argument'''') has appealed to such minds as Aristotle and his disciple, Alexander of Aphrodisias. It is argued here (1) that determinism does entail a rather similar position, dubbed ``futilism''''; and (2) that distinctively Aristotelian determinism entails fatalism for any event to which it applies. The concept of ``fate'''' is examined along the way.